Star Wars Battle Analysis: Yavin (Galactic Civil War)

[Illuminatus Primus]

Guys, you forgot about Rebel Assault, in which the Rebel fighters attack some big, oversized turbolaser turret on the Death Star before going for the exhaust port!

In all seriousness, you shouldn't put so much stock in the games. I wouldn't completely dismiss them as sources, but when they contradict the movie to such degrees, I think it's safe to say that the differences are non-canon.

This is nothing compared to Wookieepedia's absurd inclusionism of every single EaW and Battlefront mission.

[Stark]

This is nothing compared to Wookieepedia's absurd inclusionism of every single EaW and Battlefront mission.

You're not serious?

[VT-16]

Yes he is. 8)

:P

[Crossroads Inc.]

Acording to Wookie... Every off the wall video game has a deep historical section written up of its place in the Galactic Civil War.

[VT-16]

Adding the events themselves aren't bad, just as long as they don't mention 1 X-wing vs. 1000s of TIEs. :P

[Warsie]

This quote does not say what you say it says. There is no evidence from the novel to my knowledge that Dodonna is holding back dozens or hundreds of fighters, especially since by SW standards that's still a "light attack."

But other sources show that there were more ships there; and somewhere in-system. Dodonna was sure of this enough that he only sent 4 squadrons; hence the "there will be no more" statement. And if hundreds of fighters were sent, that might alarm the Imperials to be more aggressive and launch all TIEs.

And not all of them were at Yavin IV, they were in other areas.

That's nonsense. You don't send your pilots out to die to deal with a total non-threat.

Those were TIEs already launched by the Imperators; the Alliance fighters likely ran into them that way and Vader (or Tarkin, maybe both) didn't care about sending 4 TIEs, knowing that at least half would die.

Not three trench runs. Keyan Farlander flies out in an X-wing to destroy an Imperial com satellite (guarded by fighters, corvettes, and a frigate), then he hypers out. He hypers back in (next mission) to destroy DS surface defenses (destroy X number of guns in X amount of time to win mission) then flies back to Yavin, transfers to Gold Squadron, and flies a Y-wing and survives the battle as Skywalker goes on the trench run (last mission).

Okay, that's weird and most of that is non-canon and can't be worked in.

EDIT: Well, some can be worked with the mention in BF of Imperials sending a small force to scout and make sure that there are Rebels; the satellite/small defense force is that

As far as I can tell he gave that order very quickly upon showing up at the system.

Not actually. A few minutes after leaving hyperspace, he isi nformed of approaching Yavin and that the Rebel Base is on the other side of the Gas Giant; they are preparing to orbit a decent distance out.

Later on in the movie, they say that they ARE orbiting at 'maximum' velocity and the Yavin IV would be in range in 30 mins; they begin countdown then.

This is contradicted by the film.

Red and Gold sent to engage could simply be one force attacking (on film); other forces could be engaging the TIEs and doing some other attacks.

The thirty Rebels engage a comparable (possibly even smaller) number of TIEs.

That was Black Squadron spefiically, and that gave them a hard time.

If capital ships nearby were launching fighters the Rebels would have been quickly overwhelmd.

We don't know if the ISDs continued launching; or if they stopped when the X-wings went to the DS surface and/or Tarkin had those TIEs pulled back. It's confirmed that one of the attack forces engaged some TIE patrols and such.

Don't tell me that the Rebels had such massive forces in-system that they were able to tangle with some number of Destroyers and stop ALL of those hundreds of TIEs from reaching Luke's plucky little force.

No, the force that accidentally engaged the Imperials was unlucky in trying to go away. Also, some of the Alliance fighters did punch a hole in some of the TIEs Vader had launched with Black Squadron to cover the exhaust port (Bast did warn Vader)

I don't have the ANH novel with me, but from what you said I thought Tarkin was surprised that the Rebels just sent a few fighters up to attack him. A battle fleet demonstrating against them from elsewhere in the system would be more in line with his expectations, shouldn't it?

Exactly, he was surprised at that. However, the aforementioned Alliance force could've entered the accidental battle later-on and when that did happen Tarkin didn't care/take notice and was busy with the battle

Why were they even sitting there then? If the DS brought an entourage of Star Destroyers along then they don't want to be there at all.

Some ships were providing fighters to Yavin IV and others might be recording what happened and/or fleeing (which you said some ships were trying to flee)

The Rebel force you describe could be picked-off with long-range fire by the Imperial force you describe. All those Destroyers can fry the Cruisers and ignore the Corvettes and Frigates.

Assuming they caught them off-guard; Calamari Cruisers can take a decent amount of fire and if they did come under fire they could retreat.

Not to mention the carnage that would result if they got anywhere near the DS.

They didn't

They need to be gone or they will get dead.

that's why we see them in the other areas of the system or the other fleet mentioned accidentlly began fighting.

They cannot stop those Destroyers from launching TIEs to kill Red and Gold Squadrons without exposing themselves to massive fire, probably from the DS itself.

Few did launch any TIEs; the TIEs that engaged some of the Rebels over Yavin were patrols and one ISD only launched a few more TIEs

In XWA there is no Yavin mission. In XW your flagship is nowhere near Yavin when you get reassigned there...apparently in that game's "canon" Dodonna did tell them to scram!

I was referring to Echo Base with your ESB mention, inthe last X-wing mission there are 2 CRS orbiting Hoth and the Defiance is nearby in the sector, close enough to be a rendezvou spoitn fo rescapign Rebels and to assist them in fleeing

At the time of Yavin most indications are that the Alliance is VERY small. As far as I'm aware only a handful of computer games dispute this. And keep in mind that a few Star Cruisers is still not much of a strike force.

There are still Confederate holdouts, which did help with the Alliance based on the NEC, and CIS remnants did aid Rebels (like the Providence Rebel One)

They could base fighters squadrons on any old planet they chose (and they did!).

Okay, they did tend to do that and sometimes use the fleet.

Capital ships are absolutely necessary to crack open any hard targets, and the Alliance didn't have enough of them to just use them as aircraft carriers all the time.

Alliance strategy tends to focus not to enter heavily dangerous situations like that unless they can be sure to win (and have large forces); and Home One was the mobile HQ, the Alliance could spare a ship or 2 to be the HQ and they did. For small task forces and fleets with little or no friendly government support most of their attacks would be raids mainly composed of starfighters to keep supplied; larger fleets would have a lower risk of being destroyed so it would be safer to have a commandship in that fleet that is also an Alliance HQ; and staying on planets sometimes isn't the safest as that makes it hard to evacuate or flee quickly; High Command did use Calamari Cruisers as HQ ships between Hoth and Yavin

And the assault on Fondor some time before Endor resulting in the destruction of a half-built Executor (with glaring flaws, I admit that and the half-built part) happened with only 2 Nebulon-B Frigates and several starfighter squadrons present, there were likely Calamari Cruisers and such otherwise but they weren't shown.

And maybe it wasn't the bulk of their supplies, but the X-wing novels suggest that Hoth at least was a MAJOR Rebel supply base, with the quartermaster stationed there and a some amount of illicit trade going on. That's why they tried so hard to protect the transports during the battle, they couldn't afford to lose any of that stuff.

And that much of High Command was on the ships, that was important too. Don't forget there's dozens or hundreds or worlds aiding the Rebels in various forms; and other supply points were more important, Gal Milnor was attacked, its' base was destroyed and more than half of the freighters were destroyed a few months after Hoth and it only delayed the preps for the Battle of Endor.

Osama Bin Laden isn't traveling around with heavily armed Taliban strike groups; he's hiding in a cave somewhere.

Wouldn't ha have some loyal guards and such?

Hoth and Yavin (and possibly Sullust) were essentially fortified bolt-holes to hide supplies and for the leadership to stay for a couple of months or years and actually coordinate their forces instead of running around.

Your analogy is flawed in ways; The Taliban doesn't have aircraft and long-range missiles.

In the Outer Rim the Alliance can, and has hid massive fleets without the Empire noticing. And the Rebel Alliance is an Alliance; they don't need a strong coordination, each Rebel Base/sector is often its' own unless it decides to help or asked for some help from nearby forces/cells/etc.

Recall: when the Rebel armada came together in RotJ the Imperials and the Sith quickly learned about it. [/quotr]

Only Palpatine and Vader. They only receives report of an Alliance Fleet going and growing near Sullust. And Palpatine/Vader/their inquisitors has the shole Sith foresight ability so we don't knwo if the Imperials knew.

They could have just landed on them with both feet and killed everybody right there.

And take heavy losses considering the ships available at the time and area; The Strike Team wasn't afraid of the Executor and 3 ISDs at Endor, the Rebel Fleet could take care of them. At Endor there was a bunch of advanced warships there supplied by SoroSuub as well.

They only did not at the Emperor's command, because he liked his trap idea.

Actually, Imperial Forces were harassing some Rebel Fleet Elements heading to Sullust; apparently the Rebels did several jumps to shake them.

But that's the reason why the Rebels do NOT usually gather forces at one place, and especially not at their primary base.

The Alliance didn't have ALL their forces at Yavin or Hoth, a small percentage was there.

The sheer speed of communications and of hyperspace means that you are probably dead if you do that.

Heh.....and as I said, if the sector is far away and lawless liek Airam sector the Empire won't know or care; At nocto a mshipyard was built to supplement Mon Calamari and the Airam provided ships; after the Battle of Calenz the Empire didn't go there; it was too expensive and the Empire didn't deem it worth the effort. Same likely for Mon Calamari.

Cashing with Imperial fleets is one thing, sure, but I bet anything they didn't stay for long.

They were able to inflict decent losses and hold their own against the Imperial Navy forces in the Outer Rim.

Alliance ships can certainly engage Imperials with hefty use of jamming and hit-and-run tactics.

Depending on the sector, the Alliance can do that without 'hit-and-run'. The Rebels did that with Gerrard V in the Second Battle or Gerrard V and the ground Battled of Abridon; the Alliance held their own.

I'm not sure myself why the Imperials didn't drop the heavy end of the hammer on Calamari, aside from, as you say, more of the Emperor's stupidity.

Technically the DS was supposed to destroy it; Mon Calamari was high on the 'destroy list' and the DSII might take over that.

thousands of ships there, the Imperials might not be able to spare the forces to destroy them (busy repressing the rest of the galaxy don't'cha'know)

That is true, but in some systems it was simple overkill. the Empire wasn't necesssarily repressing the Galaxy, just keeping the majority of the peoples' support by keeping law and order and a visible presence; not much 'repressing'was needed; the CW was often involving the local system/sector wars as proxy wars sometimes, with the minority or outnumbered/whatever population seceding to the CIS, the majority staying loyalist as an example and after Rendili's Secession, Palpatine nationalized all local navies of worlds that were not controlled by the Republic, so not much force was needed, at least not in the Core and the Colonies. The Inner Rim was firmly in control and the surrendering local forces allied to the CIS would lkely be repatriated to their homeworld and Palpatine absorbed or dissolved their navies; the Outer Rim and Mid Rim had more of a local war problem. Most of the inner systems didn't even have the means to fight each other, and even if they did the Empire didn't repress them, they more of provided a wall between each from fighting.

I'd also like to remind you that most inner systems were loyal and didn't want to disrupt the peace; the CW had them trade for security. Later on the Empire's reign, that might've changed but fre inner worlds had the mavies to do that.

but then you'd think the Mon Calamari could spare a hundred or so for Endor, the MOST IMPORTANT ENGAGEMENT OF THE WAR.

Wouldn't Yavin be more important?

Why? They could just drop a probe and run like rabbits instead. Star Destroyers easily have the acceleration to run them down, assuming there were actually that many at the party.

What says they didn't after the Imperials entered in-system? As well as the fact that CRS cruisers have comparable acceleration, amd the 10 or so ISDs tended to stay by the DS, few interecpted that force fleeing.

`The ANH mention of the massive defense that didn't happen?

Tarkin thought that the Alliance would do that, and later on a detachment of the Imp Flt did engage Alliance forces somewhere in the system,

My take is that the battle probably proceeded much as it did in the film. Both sides have good reasons not to bother attacking the others capital ships.

Most didn't. I redid the title, It's 'Rebels in the Yacin System' and will add in that most of the ships likely fled before/during the battle.

Tarkin doesn't see the Rebel attack as any threat whatsoever. Vader doesn't have the authority and/or the will to call in a whole fleet to oust the Rebel strike force. If there are Star Destroyers along for the ride they are probably just berthed at the DS and watching the fireworks.

Most were, but a detahment somehow did fight some Alliance ships. SOME. Not a major engagement

Now, the subsequent battle...that is, the TAKING of Yavin by Imperial forces...would have to be constructed from various EU accounts, and has the potential to be an extremely interesting project.

Yeah, the Imperial activities post-Yavin is...interesting and complicated.

[Warsie]

IIRC the radio drama mentions that the Rebels have no heavy strike craft/bombers or capital ships available (or something to that effect), just the snubfighters, so if there were any capital ships they probably were sent off prior ot the Death Star's arrival.

Thst is posible, yes. I thought it saya that the Alliance has a shortage of pilots currently.

not that you'd want a substantial fleet presence hanging around the HIDDEN Rebel base. That would kind of negate the purpose of having it hidden.

As Angirus said, Hoth was hidden and there was a bunch of smuggling, and 2 CRS were orbiting Hoth at the last X-wing mission:

If one needed to explain the presence/absence of fleets, one could say that the Imperial ships (if any) escorting the Death Star were redeployed by Tarkin in case anyone tried to escape Yavin (maybe that was the beginning of the blockade - we DO know from other sourcese later on that the Yavin system was totally blockaded to prevent rebels from escaping. Couple that with Tarkin's refusal to dpeloy his fighter strength and we can conclude he ordered the escorts away to both cordon off the system and because he didn't think he needed them.)

Thank you for the information; so Tarkin didn't mess up as badly as soem have said.

On the Rebel side, you could argue that Dodonna's plan might have neccesitated calling off the escorts around the Death Star, so Dodonna "called in" ships to pull those escorts away (and allow the rebel fighters to appraoch the Death Star basically unmolested.) That would be about the ONLY way I could see the Rebels bringing any fleet assets in or around Yavin at that point in time.

Thank you, interesting idea

Odds are most fighter or small craft mentioned in other sources (ARC-170s stormtrooper transports, "other various fighterS", etc) will have to be ditched given that the vast bulk of sourcse (radio drama and novel) make specific mention of the known "attacking" ships (or the majority, which were x- and Y-wings IIRc.) You might make allowances for a few "other" ships (the Spearhead fighters, perhaps) as being part of the "squadrons" not seen in the movies but mentioned in the novel attacking other sections of the Death STar in diversionary tactics (yellow and Green, IIRC.) b ut most of those would have been X-wings and Y-wings also. Either that, or the vessels were not spaceworthy for one reason or another (crippled, disabled, lack of pilots, etc.)

I didn't say that the fighters in Yavin Base attacked the DS, those who attacked the DS were under 'Alliance Attack Force'. The ARCs and V-wings were at Yavin Base, not in the battle.

[Aaron2]

IIRC the radio drama mentions that the Rebels have no heavy strike craft/bombers or capital ships available (or something to that effect), just the snubfighters, so if there were any capital ships they probably were sent off prior ot the Death Star's arrival.

Thst is posible, yes. I thought it saya that the Alliance has a shortage of pilots currently.

Sorry to resurect a dead thread but I was listening to the radio drama the other day and heard this quote. The part about the fighters being old suprised me. There is no way in this transcript to relay Han's sarcastic tone in the first line of dialog.

---------------------------------------------------------------
HAN: Your rebellions got some great equipment Princess. No heavy combat ships at all and every one of those snub fighters is older than you are.

LEIA: Some day you'll learn that it's people and not things that decide history.

HAN: You better teach that to the Empire first.

LUKE: That's the whole idea, Han.
---------------------------------------------------------------

[Connor MacLeod]

Thst is posible, yes. I thought it saya that the Alliance has a shortage of pilots currently.

It does. But it also specifies that they only HAVE the X-wing and Y-wing snubfighters. They don't have anything bigger or more powerful.

There's further consideration. The ANH novelization makes mention of a number of powerful "Senators and Generals" present at Yavin, who were big supporters of the Alliance when the Empire sturck.. If they had capital ship assets there, why didn't they bother using them to get them out of their (or get the essential command elements of the base itself out of there?)

The loss of the base was supposed to be crippling for the Rebellion, there's no reason for them to stick around if there is transport out of there.

As Angirus said, Hoth was hidden and there was a bunch of smuggling, and 2 CRS were orbiting Hoth at the last X-wing mission:

REbel ships are large and distinctive vessels. Are you telling me they wouldn't realize they're Rebel assets the minute the probe droid spotted them? SW starships aren't exactly subtle things to detect, ,even in open space. (not without a cloaking device anyhow)

Thank you for the information; so Tarkin didn't mess up as badly as soem have said.

Yeah he did. He still allowed overconfidence and arrogance to overrule his caution. If he'd actually deployed his starfighters, (even a few hundred) the Rebels couldn't have succeeded.

I didn't say that the fighters in Yavin Base attacked the DS, those who attacked the DS were under 'Alliance Attack Force'. The ARCs and V-wings were at Yavin Base, not in the battle.

Which does not alter the point in the least.